Friday, November 25, 2005

Where was I ? Oh, that's right... Barcelona!

Things I've Been Doing Which Explain If Not Excuse Lack Of Posting:

Working.Gymming.Wandering round town in the cold with the D. B. at lunchtime.Playing with LiveJournal. (New toys are a bad idea.)Going to my handwriting class.Going out to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.Going out with some friends for a drink (look! A social life!)Trying to organise wedding invitations.Watching Bleak House and Lost (and you probably don't know how unusual it is for me to watch more than one series at a time, or you'd be more surprised)Reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and enjoying it really rather a lot. I'm sorry it's finished.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments! Eating has been going a lot better, despite its being very cold here, and I'm happy with my diet for the past week. I have been wondering, however, if I ought to get a bit more scientific about what I'm doing. The other day I worked out my basic metabolic rate, which was 1638.7. This is (if I've understood it right) the number of calories I'd need to maintain my weight if I didn't do any activity at all.

This seemed quite a high number. Then you need to decide what your activity level is, and multiply the BMR by the corresponding number, which is 1.55 for moderate sporting activity 3 to 5 days a week. I ended up with over 2500 calories to maintain, and about 2000 to lose weight, which sounds like an awful lot.

I tried again with "light activity" (1-3 days per week) and got 2253 to maintain weight, 1753 to lose. Again, I can't believe I eat that much.

Perhaps I should try to journal what I eat for a week, and see. This isn't the kind of thing I'm good at, not being particularly methodical, but I am sick of this plateau. I feel that I'm doing all the right things, exercise-wise, and not losing.

Otherwise I'm quite cheerful. One month to Christmas! When the decorations go up really early, I'm as cynical as anyone about it, but now I'm beginning to get in the mood. I love Christmas. We actually had snow this morning, which is almost unheard of, this early in the year. The way the flakes fall, that slow drift downwards - it's just magical. (Probably I'd feel differently if I had to drive in it, or if we had snow more often.)

This week sees the passing of Lose the Buddha, the second blog I ever read (the first was Pound!), one of the best blogs out there and one I'll always have fond memories of, as it helped me through some gloomy times. Undoubtedly I wouldn't have embarked on blogging if not for Erin, and she is the only possible reason that I imagine I'd like to do a triathlon at some point, as well as introducing me to the term "boy howdy" . I'm sorry LTB is going, but understand Erin's reasons for calling it a day - and I'm very glad that her regular blog will be continuing at www.ejshea.com.

Oh, and if you can spot the connection between the title and anything else in this post, I'll be highly impressed.

I think those "calories to maintain weight" are a LIE! Or based on men's metabolisms, or athletes with lots of muscle, or something. Fitday told me I need 1900 to maintain, if I take in that much I gain weight. Right now I'm hovering between 1600 and 1700 a day and maintaining. I'm a little obsessive, so it's fairly natural for me to keep track of foodage using fitday on my PC at home.

Have you thought of altering what you're eating? Upping the protein and fibre? Which probably means lots of beans, since you're a vegetarian. I haven't lost any weight since August, but I've lost almost enough inches to go down a size in jeans, with very little exercise. Pleasant, but confusing. All I can attribute it to is upping my intake of vegetables and beans, and cutting down on meat a little.

DG - It's entirely possible I never mentioned the handwriting class before. Not calligraphy, but learning to read Renaissance handwriting, which is called Secretary Hand and has quite a lot of fundamental differences from modern hands.

I never really expected anyone to get the title - it's a reference to Doctor Who. The link is David Tennant: Christopher Eccleston's Doctor morphed into David Tennant in the last episode of the previous series (whereupon he uttered the words of the title). The character Mad-Eye Moody also morphs into David Tennant in Goblet of Fire... and I'd meant to say somewhere in that entry that he seems a popular choice to transform into! But I never got round to it, so decided to leave it as a challenge... Yes, I am a total geek. Sorry.

RG - yes, that probably would be a good idea, which is one reason why I'm tracking: so that I know what I need to change from. I think the entry above is a bit skewed - I definitely don't eat cheese and pasta every day!

When I was about 11 or 12 I kept a food diary to try to trace any food triggers for my migranes. I ate an astonishing amount of cinnamon toast. Probably because it's addictive and very easy to make when your parents have an AGA, no preheating the grill needed!

When I say astonishing amount, I'm talking at least one slice a day, but usually more like 3.

Progress

Other Stuff

About Me

I'm 33, and from Edinburgh in Scotland. I am an archivist and also mother of the Peanut, born in July 2011, and the Sweetpea, born March 2013. I read and knit a lot, garden a little, watch too much TV while feeding the baby and am a bit of a geek.